After a two-year trip, ESA’s Hera will meet the double asteroid Didymos and its 151-metre moon Dimorphos in November 2026, giving the first close-up look at the crater and reshaped surface left by NASA’s DART spacecraft, which struck at 6.6 km/s in 2022 and shortened Dimorphos’ 11 h 55 min orbit by about 32 minutes. Soon after arrival Hera will release two cubesats: Juventas, built in Luxembourg, will probe the asteroids’ interior and may touch down on Dimorphos, and Milani, built in Turin, will study their dust. Our take: this is the follow-up that turns DART from a single shot into a real planetary-defence test.
Nov 2026rendezvous with Didymos and Dimorphos
−32 minDimorphos’ orbit after the DART impact
2cubesats: Milani (Italy) and Juventas